YCH’s Hop Harvest Experience Goes Virtual!
Yakima Chief Hops invites you to experience this year’s hop harvest in the Pacific Northwest – virtually!
Available for free and to the public, YCH’s 2020 Virtual Harvest event provides every brewer with a behind-the-scenes look at hop farming, harvest and production, as well as educational seminars and discussions. For the first time ever, everyone across the globe will have the opportunity to witness the labor of love that goes into every pint.
This comprehensive harvest experience will last the entire month of September and feature: daily harvest updates, grower interviews, farm and facility tours, Hop & Brew School presentations, new hop variety announcements and more!
As a grower owned company with a mission to connect family hop farms to brewers, the harvest season is the heart of Yakima Chief Hops. Each season, they invite customers from all over the world to witness it firsthand. It’s a special experience and an industry tradition that makes growing hops and brewing beer taste that much better. In an effort to keep the hop and brewing communities connected during these challenging times, YCH’s harvest experience is going virtual to ensure everyone has the ability to join.
For those that have never visited the Yakima Valley during harvest, this is a great introduction to the overall process, taking you on a journey from field to pint. For those that are veteran harvest and Hop & Brew School attendees, it’s an opportunity to learn more about what YCH and growers have been doing this past year, from facility updates to new hop varieties.
To learn more about YCH’S 2020 Virtual Harvest, visit Hopwire Blog Click Enroll to subscribe to the Virtual Harvest mailing list and stay updated on the event.
I noticed that Yakima Chief refers to their hop farms as ranches. However, that is technically incorrect. A ranch is were production is focused on livestock. Growing hops is farming. There is no shame in using the term farm, even if it is in the American West. In the East, all farms are farms regardless of if they grow livestock.
Some started as Ranches, and still have the name. I’ve been to Perault Farms. They have a small herd of Bison, but it is called a farm. They can call themselves what they want.
Kent and Herefordshire are 150 miles apart and can’t agree whether hops are grown in hop gardens or hop yards - long live local differences, don’t sweat it.
While I agree now is not the time to travel (and my recommendation was tough in cheek) I spoke to a friend at YCH yesterday and he said things are much better there.
Drew and I had a meeting with YCH yesterday. We’ll be posting links to a coupke sessions we’ll be involved with. One thing you can sign up for now is the Virtual Sensory Evaluation. You get sent a bunch of bale cores and do the sensory right along with Tiffany from YCH. Costs $25 for shipping, and you end up with a bunch of primo whole cone hops. Sensory: Flavor in Beer | Hop & Brew School
Danny, is there a registration deadline, or max number of participants? Sounds like a great way to spend some time with beer stuff, just not 100% certain I can be there live yet
Denny and Drew are joining the fine folks at Yakima Chief Hops Hop & Brew School “Virtual Harvest Edition”. We’ll be doing a Live Q&A session on Friday September 25th at 4PM PT via Zoom. (Details at https://hopandbrewschool.com/ ). It’s free to join!
We want your questions about hops, homebrewing and harvest! We’ll be picking 5-7 (number maybe different based on length of answering) and using the hop obsessed minds at YCH to get your questions thoroughly answered. Go to www.experimentalbrew.com/yakima to submit your question.
Winning submissions will receive a YCH Prize Pack with all sorts of goodies it. (That’s why we’re asking for your contact information - no resale of data is happening!)
And if your question isn’t among those chosen, we’ll be randomly selecting winners of additional prize packs. So ask your questions.
(Please note, questions must be valid questions to be entered into the random prize drawing. 1 entry per person. Prize packs can only be shipped to US residents. [people get dodgy about plant material crossing borders!])
Can’t make it happen this year, but this would be an awesome club ed option if YCH was thinking about doing it again either later when people could get together or next year at harvest time.
Fri. is looking especially good. They’re trying to get some of the flavor of the social scene in Yakima into the program. Tacos and Sports Center are the 2 biggest things I look forward to other than the hops. And I guarantee you that Ralph should not be missed. He’s like a living encyclopedia of hops in the PNW. He made a lot of the history he’ll be talking about.
I listened to one of the dry hop sessions last week and they spoke quite a bit about cryo hops. I have yet to try them but the conversation peeked my interest (again).
